The UNIX "epoch time" starts at 0 on January 1st, 1970, and the clock deals with time
as the number of seconds since then.
I began using UNIX in 1986, when the clock stood at a bit over a half billion
seconds.
At some point I determined when the clock would hit one billion seconds -
September 8th 2001.
I decided we'd have a celebration when that occurred, and we did.
The invite:

The party I've been posting about every hundred million seconds or so for the
last several years is finally coming up!
It's the UNIX epoch Billion-second Birthday Barbecue, occurring over a period
carefully selected to encompass Sat Sep 08 18:46:40 PDT 2001.
Assorted time-monitoring devices will be available for your chronometric
convenience, that you should not miss the great Rolling of the Digits.
We'll probably start around 4PM and continue as long as anyone is about - exact
details will be transmitted at a later (but not too much later) time.
There will be vast tracts of exquisitely sumptuous grill space available.
Oh, and probably something or other to slap onto that delicious, oh so sensual
grillllll space.
Mmm, I think I hear my grilL calling me.
Good-bye!

Mike wrote an odometer-style graphical clock with rolling digits for this
occasion, so we could all savor the moment when the 999999999 scrolled up to
become 1000000000.

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